I Stretched My Boots With Chanel No. 5 Perfume. Yes, Really.
I remember the very moment when I knew, without a doubt, that Mr. Foxypants was the man for me. It was when he said without any prompting, “I like how thick your calves are,” unintentionally complimenting the parts of my body that I hate the most.
I have fat legs.
Okay, they aren’t fat fat. But, tell that to the fashion industry. The average size 7 shoe wearer has a 14 inch calf circumference. At 15.5 inches, my calves are even too fat for most “wide shaft” boots. A childhood spent running the hills of Eugene, Oregon and my adulthood bike riding habit has resulted in permanently sturdy legs. I’ve probably wasted a week of my life shopping for off-the-rack, knee-high riding boots, that don’t make my legs look like tree trunks.
I blame Molly Ringwald.
Five years ago, I spent my last dollar (okay, it was my last $99) on a pair of vintage riding boots that zipped over my bare legs with a lot of zipper tugging and flesh squishing. Yes, I was actually willing to go on a pasta and water diet to afford these boots, even though I have to wear thick socks with them because they are a size to large for me. That’s how much I wanted them.
All this probably sounds pathetic to the thin-legged reader. But you, mademoiselle, can suck it.
The riding boots are by Miss Bergdorf, an in-store brand that was phased out in the 1980′s. Everything about these boots is fabulous, from the metallic gold leather lining to the double buckles at the boot tops. Fabulous except for the fact that I can only wear these over bare legs. At 15 inches in circumference, they are still a half inch too tight. I can’t even zip them over stretchy breeches. So much for actually wearing my riding boots on an actual horse.
I don’t know why it took me five years to get the boot’s shafts stretched to fit my calves (#27 on my master To Do list). I suspect it had something to do with spending $50 on speculative shoe repair, but really this is one of those things that I chalk up to my OCD tweakerness.
Alas, even after two weeks on Victor’s Stretch-O-nator, the boots still won’t zip without effort. Never mind that all the working out at Curves has resulted in even buffer gams. Altering the boots by adding an extra leather or elastic insert is so expensive that I might as well just save the money to put towards the $1000 cost of custom made boots for professional equestrian leg fatties.
This led me to a desperate search for alternatives. A quick google revealed a magical shoe stretching liquid. Miraculously, my local drug store carries the 4 oz. bottle of Shoe Stretch spray $3.95 Let’s just say, I couldn’t drive to the store fast enough.
At the drug store, I decided to read the ingredients of the magic Shoe Stretch just to make sure I wasn’t putting something deadly poisonous to bees, humans, or fish, onto my footwear. The main ingredients of Shoe Stretch? 50% isopropyl alcohol and water.
The magic Shoe Stretch liquid is rubbing alcohol and water.
I bought a quart of 70% isopropyl alcohol for $2.38 instead.
When I got home, I realized that I’d been too efficient with my disposal of all my empty sample bottles. I didn’t have an empty spray bottle to put the alcohol in. Luckily, the bathroom counter revealed the perfect solution (literally and figuratively).
The bottom of my vintage Chanel atomizer bottle was caked with dark brown perfume residue. The wick was also stained and yucky looking. As this perfume bottle is slated for the ebay/etsy rampage of next month, I need to wash the gunk out before I photograph it to sell online, without damaging the original paper label. So, killing two birds with one stone, I decided that I would decant 2 oz. of rubbing alcohol into the perfume bottle to clean off the residue, and then use the atomizer to spray the residue/alcohol mix onto my boots.
I ended up with 2 oz. of what looks and smells like Chanel No. 5 Eau de Cologne. I liberally squirted this extremely posh smelling mixture on the interior and exterior of the boot shafts. Then, while the leather was still slightly damp, I put on the boots.
The boots zipped up OVER my skinny jeans without trouble. Four hours later, the boots have stretched more than half an inch in circumference! For the first time in my life, I can zip my boots over my calves without my feet falling asleep.
While it’s probably the 70% rubbing alcohol that did the majority of the stretching duty, I’m giving a lot of credit to Coco Chanel. Four hours later my boots still smell pleasantly like my grandma.
Win.
7 Comments
I started reading about your boot-stretching needs, I wanted to shout through the computer. I wanted to stop you from paying for services or the boot stretching liquid! In 1978, my daughter had outgrown her ballet slippers just BEFORE recital time in the spring. Not wanting to purchase another pair of ballet slippers that would languish all summer and then be too small halfway through the next year, I was bemoaning my fate to other ballet mothers. All the other experienced, helpful mothers and the teacher guided me to the cobbler/shoe shop in town to buy a liquid to stretch shoes. With three children in tow or with the toddler in arms and on my way to pick the two up from school (always doing one or the other, it seemed), I hurriedly purchased the expensive, tiny bottle and brought it home to perform magic. When I smelled the stuff (I always smell stuff I purchase), it was alcohol! I never purchased another bottle and told all the other mothers who never purchased again. Sigh…the poor guy probably never got rid of his stock and is still wondering what happened. Yeah, that stuff saved the purchase of many a pair of ballet slippers since I had two in ballet shoes.
To read more, go to my blog. About the Chanel No. 5 remark, I think you just insulted me…more about that on the blog…
Thanks for posting this!! I have the same wide calves problem! I actually don’t own a pair of nice boots because I also feel like they make my legs look like tree trunks. I just measured mine and they’re 15″ and that’s after losing 25lbs this year! lol Super excited I can now shop for boots!! Thanks again!
Great post. Had a question though .. will this work on any material or just leather? I have faux leather and suede boots that I would love to strech out too. Thanks.
Hmmm….I don’t know. However, I’d be very careful. I’ve found that faux leather is much less forgiving that real leather. That’s something I’d google around for. Good luck!
Thank you for posting this! I have been in a bit of a dilemma for the past 2 months similar to your story… I have formed a bit of a boot obsession here. Upon doing some research, I found out the trendy name of worn leather, it was “distressed” leather – my research stemmed from my favorite pair of boots. Story is: there was a pair of tan leather ankle boots that I’ve worn so much until I personally qualified them as “distressed” leather boots on my on own merits (to everyone’s dismay…I had justified to everyone that I was not throwing them away)…. SO WHAT, that they have no heels and are grinded down and sound like hollow clogs on a hard surface! Knowing sooner than later that the heels would split, and imaginning the humuliation that would come with it – I finally decided to Google tan distressed leather boots, which is harder to find then I expected… and stumbled upon the Chupacabra… they were “my” ankle boots resurrected into a new and fresh knee high version with the cleanest pair of heels that I ever saw. I have always had a liking for riding boots and had a few pairs, so this was the best of both worlds! They were Lucky Brand boots; needless to say, they were $200! Who pays that for a pair of boots!?! My trusty ankle boots were $19.99 and I had been wearing them for atleast 7 years (less the summers). After searching a few websites I realized the cheapest I could find them was $180 and not all of them had my size so I left it alone….2-3 weeks later I had rationalized that if I got the Lucky Brand boots I would get my money’s worth, I certainly did for my ankle boots. They say that if you don’t buy something on the whim and you still want it days or weeks afterwards that it wouldn’t be considered impulse buying. With that being said, and a little resourcefulness, I found the right website that had the Lucky Brand boots on sale with free shipping and found online coupons to get the price down to $150!! Realizing that my favorite ankle boots were sort of a rare find, I decided that I was gonna go for it – I did my homework! Thing is, I decided to ignore the fact that the calf circumference was a 14-1/2′, I was hopeful or rather, wishful that once I got them they would have some give and stretch a little. I didn’t have a measuring tape to measure my calves but knew in the back of my mind that I have always had muscular calves. The day I got them I bounced around like a kid tearing open the shipping box, admiring the cool box inside and all those little “expensive” inserts that come with pricey things….the boots looked like everything I hoped for – they were PERFECT! As I slipped them on, I cringed as I struggled to get the boot trunk past the ‘lower’ part of my calve, I pulled and pulled and got it up a little, but not much. There was no stretchy ripples or stretch leather or stretch …anything at the base of the trunk. So for the past 2 months I’ve been gazing at them sadly and a bit salty trying to figure out how to stretch them without having to pay for it. The original plan was to loose some weight, but I agree that when you have naturally muscular (and meaty) calves, they are not always the first thing to go when you loose weight. This morning I just got the idea to Google boot trees that can stretch the circumference as an alternative and stumbled on your story. You have no idea how excited I am to try out your suggestion with Isopropyl Alcohol and I DO have a couple of mini spray bottles that I typically save for my travels (since we can only bring 3 oz or less on the planes). I was thinking that I still needed a boot tree but it didn’t occur to me to use my own leg as the boot tree, great idea! Funny how people miss the simplest thing….. I am going to find an old pair of tights, spray the inside of the boots (since they are fair colored) and clean my house and vacuum, which should take a few hours, I am hopeful that will do the trick and I get to wear them THIS winter, instead of the next! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!
As a man who likes to wear high heeled boots (yes you read right!), funnily enough I have a story similar to phillylicious, in that I bought some very expensive designed for men (or so they claimed) 4in heel ankle boots with side zip, in the largest size they offered – which was meant to be UK men’s 11. I would have bought a size larger but they didnt offer any. I waited over 10 months for the so-called custom mad boots to arrive, but when they came they looked less glamourous than in the photos on the eBay store – they were just large sized women’s 90s style boots. This wouldnt have been so much of a problem if I had paid <$50 but these cost me about $400, and if the change in style wasn't bad enough, my heart sank farther as I couldn't even get meh left foot into the boot!! Not only do I have large manly calves, I also have a left foot, that is fatter than the right, but with a thinner calf (WTF?!), yes my left foot is too big for my boots but the right foot fits, in spite of the fact that the right calf is wider. So I'm lying in bed wearing the right boot for the hell of it, since I will never be able to pound the pavement in my expensive new boots. Since the heel cap is too tight for my left foot I am not sure if your alcoholic idea could help me, and I am scared to ruin the boots! Help!
Boo! What a sad story. Well, I am not a shoe specialist or a textile expert so I don’t know if my trick will ruin your awesome boots or not. So far I’ve used this trick on three pairs of leather shoes that I own, all vintage, with no discoloring or damage that I can see. I’d use straight rubbing alcohol (No perfume residue like I used). Can you buy a pair of sacrificial shoes at a thrift store for a few bucks in a similar color or leather type and experiment on the cheap shoes first? Then you can see first hand how it works without having to worry about ruining your boots. That said, the tight heel cap sounds like it needs professional attention.